Treon the Transcendent answers affirmatively

“Yes, My Time Has Arrived!”

First, a confession: I wrote most of the first third of this column prior to this game against Tennessee. I wrote it on faith. That faith, in my estimation, has been vindicated. I believe in Will Muschamp, and I believe he is the right coach for the Gators of this era. I believe he is a championship coach but I know he is a serious Gator fan with a serious Gator history. A coach who has earned his stripes first as a player in the SEC, then as a defensive coach and coordinator, and then as Head Coach In Waiting at Texas. In other words, the right man for the job.

But . . . man, oh man, oh man, oh man did that son of a gun test my faith Saturday in Knoxville. And if he dares to try and put Jeff Driskel in the starting lineup against LSU, he will lose me forever. It’s just unthinkable, and I don’t even care to discuss it.

As I type up the remainder of this column, I’m doing it while breathing some serious – and much needed – air of relief. Genuine relief! Breathing room has been restored for the football program. Now the season can play itself out without the phenomenal sense of negativity that would have enveloped the Orange and Blue had we lost this Tennessee game. A loss we surely would have earned had a change at quarterback not been made.

And, luckily, the conference appears to be a free-for-all like never before.

Thank you, Will Muschamp, for pulling that trigger.

What a Rocky Top Statement!

Man, this feels good. This feels so damn good!

When I look at the Volunteers new coach, Butch Jones, I see a worthy adversary. When I check out his team, I see a growing power. When I think forward, I have to admit this to myself: oh boy, Florida-Tennessee is about to go back to what it was. The battle to be The Beast of the East. That’s why this win, in part, feels so damn good.

Primarily, however, there’s another reason for the incredible high I’m on right now.

Until this Rocky Top Statement (and, no doubt, afterwards for the incalcitrant) there was a narrative running rampant around college football. It was a hopeful narrative for all those who are haters of Gator Nation from without, and for those within Gator Nation who for various and sundry reasons just don’t cotton to Georgia grad as Head Gator In Charge – it was an impossibly doubtful narrative. The sentiment is probably best exemplified by this piece from John Adams, columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel, prior to the Florida vs. Tennessee game:

 Tennessee hasn’t beaten Florida since Ron Zook coached the Gators.

But in a way, Zook is still coaching the Gators. They just call him “Will Muschamp.”

 Zook was a defensive-minded coach with no head-coaching experience when Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley tabbed him to succeed Florida legend Steve Spurrier.

 Muschamp was a defensive-minded coach with no head-coaching experience when Foley selected him to succeed Urban Meyer, who led the Gators to two national championships before having a sudden urge to spend time with his family.

 Zook was a good recruiter. So is Muschamp.

 And both share a common affliction that hasn’t endeared them to Florida fans: They don’t win enough games.

 Saturday’s game at Neyland Stadium shapes up as another game Muschamp won’t win.

 Tennessee 34, Florida 17: Contrary to popular opinion locally, the Vols haven’t already won this game. It just seems that way because fans are so convinced the Gators’ nine-game winning streak in the series will end Saturday — just as so many of them were convinced two years ago that the Gators’ seven-game winning streak would end at Neyland Stadium.

 I haven’t been this certain of a Tennessee victory over an SEC opponent since the 2011 Kentucky game.

 Newsflash to John Adams and to all the straight-up haters or confused doubters hoping for the downfall of Will Muschamp – Ron Zook ain’t coaching these Gators, okay? And conventional wisdom ain’t scheisse, okay!?!

Ron Zook never had a team at Florida go 11-2 and be a stone’s throw from the national title game. Will Muschamp has.

A humongous gaggle of folks have been wishing like hell for Will Muschamp’s failure at Florida. They’ve hoped like hell that a weird confluence of circumstances weren’t, well, a weird confluence of circumstances.

So sorry, so sad — but that’s what the hell they were. Deal with it. Because you’re going to have to deal with this Gator team this season. As long as the quarterback position doesn’t get in the way (meaning: Treon starts, Jeff transitions to backup), this team is headed for the SEC championship game in Atlanta.

The Game

What a mess of a game, offensively. What a gem of a game, defensively.

 

Oct 4, 2014; Knoxville, TN, USA; A general view of Neyland Stadium prior to the game against the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 4, 2014; Knoxville, TN, USA; A general view of Neyland Stadium prior to the game against the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

About the offense: I firmly believe a quarterback’s command presence, in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage, affects the rhythm of an offense. When you look at the Gators when quarterbacked by Jeff Driskel, we are unfortunately watching a machine that does not believe in itself. Jeff doesn’t believe in himself, the line doesn’t believe in him, and neither do the receivers. That’s why, in my honest opinion, we’ve seen so many drops. The offense is out of rhythm. There is an undeniable rhythm to quarterbacking. Jeff has no rhythm. He’s like the beautiful woman at the dance who not only has no coordination whatsoever, but appears somewhat afflicted in the slightest but noticeable kind of way.

I was blinded by the potential of Jeff, the measurables of Jeff, the sheer physicality of Jeff. I’m done with all of that and feel no need to address any of the herky-jerky that was Florida on offense for most of the game. However, with 19 seconds left in the third quarter, everything change.

That’s when Treon the Transcendent entered the game.

I told a Vol friend on Friday this, “When you see number three enter the game, you will know it is all over for the Vols. As long as they give him enough time to make a difference, he is going to win the game for us.”

And he did.

He demonstrated competence and command. He made one ridiculously bad pass out near the sideline that damn near made me pass out from pick-six fear but that was it. The difference in the flow of the offense was immediate, the decisions made from the quarterback position seemed confident, and the guys obviously wanted to play extremely hard for him.

Treon Harris, that legendary high school quarterback from historic Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, F.L.A. is the man on campus right now. It would be the height of stupidity to try and fight this and tell Gator Nation we didn’t see what we know damn well we saw. Stop with the excuses for Jeff Driskel. Treon is the man now, and all we’ve got to do is . . . turn him loose!

I must, however, sing the praises of our defense. As I wrote in a reply on one of our message boards, in the Bama game the score stood at 21-21 in the third quarter thanks to our DEFENSE. So, the game was there for the taking. Bama then came out with a 16-play, 66 yard drive. When you force a championship team to go on a 16-play, 66-yard drive (less than 4 yards per play) it is not evidence of a bad defense. It means your defense put up one hell of a fight. But Bama persevered. Kudos to them. Sixteen incredible plays, 66 hard-earned yards, seven minutes and 15 seconds off the clock. And our quarterback responded to that magnificent drive with nothing. And the drive after that with nothing. Yet people couldn’t seem to grasp how 40 extra plays in 95 degree heat would seriously affect our defense.

Seemed pretty obvious to me. And the Tennessee game proves it. The Vols put up 32 points on the road at Georgia, and gained 400 yards of total offense.

No, we don’t have a sorry defense full of players the coaches have misevaluated or failed to coach up (one of the bizarre memes some folks were pushing last week). We have an extremely talented defense that’s very young in the backfield. But they are growing up, quickly.

The Aftermath

After getting their clock cleaned, LSU is going to be desperate when they roll into Gainesville. I don’t know what to say about their game against Auburn but I doubt very much if they allow that to happen two weeks in a row. We’re going to have a typical Florida-LSU physical death match.

Treon Harris is going to be the talk of the Sunshine State this week and well he should be. Two touchdown passes on two passes in his first appearance on Florida Field and now two scoring drives on three possessions when placed in the most difficult circumstance possible for a true freshman: a scoreless effort by the Gators, with only the fourth quarter remaining, and 100,000 screaming fans in the building.

And he pulled it off.

Treon the Transcendent: Turn. Him. Loose!

J.B. White
J.B. White is a native Floridian who describes himself as a Florida-Georgia boy; both parents were born and raised in Georgia, but he is 100% Floridian. After graduating from Orange Park High School, he served a tour in the United States Army and in the Active Reserves while a student at U.F., graduating with a Political Science degree in 1985. He then graduated from the FSU College of Law. With two siblings who are practicing attorneys, he laughs off his abject failure on the Florida Bar Exam as a painful gift from God. He is currently on the Board of Directors for CREOLE, Inc., a nonprofit heavily influenced by the University of Florida.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Great Job JB….I’m not sure which way WM will go. I don’t watch the practices, so your guess is as good as mine. If Jeff looks great in practice and Treon looks off, I can see WM not being able to help himself, especially being a home game and plug Jeff under center. I will say that it is obvious that this team responds better and rallies around Treon better than they do for JD. If Treon does in fact start this Saturday and leads us to a win, then the Driskel experiment will officially be over….and I guess it was meant to be. I feel bad for Jeff because our offensive personnel sure as shit didn’t do anything to help him out, but if they respond better with Treon then so be it.

  2. One thing you said is a fact for everyone that isn’t blind. If Muschamp trots out Jeff Driskel again, he would lose the support of those in the minority, like you, that still think he is a good coach. Driskel should never see the field again for a meaningful snap, he’s atrocious. It’s wrong to speculate UF is great on defense, we need to see it happen on a consistent basis. After all, Tennessee is still a bad team. It’s hard to know what to believe this season. Alabama makes Florida’s defense look like high school kids and then only manages to score one touchdown on offense against Ole Miss. Let’s see what happens further down the road. LSU dominated both lines of scrimmage last year, that needs to change this year. Both teams are offensively challenged, you would think the first one to 14 wins. But this year has shown us that there are no givens, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see a shootout.